


Junebug

by availedobscurity



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Pet Names, blood mention, i don't know okay i just like to have fun, i wrote comms right in this one are you proud, some glorious future where they're all doing okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 04:39:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11982309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/availedobscurity/pseuds/availedobscurity
Summary: The first time it happened, Juno was at work.(or, peter nureyev's most embarrassing pet name is following juno everywhere)





	Junebug

**Author's Note:**

> i'm still not emotionally ready to listen to stolen city and i need a break from my other fic so take this silly sentimental thing i made please

The first time it happened, Juno was at work.

“Rita?” Juno popped his head out of his office. “Did you… watch, that security footage?”

“Nah, I was watching a real good str--,” Rita stopped herself; Juno had given her yet another talk about multi-tasking yesterday, and they had an unspoken agreement that Rita would pretend she had listened and really taken it to heart for at least twenty-four hours afterwards. “I was… reformatting… the hardware. On the computer. Because that’s something you can do, on a computer, it’s a real thing that makes sense to everyone and not only a technology genius like myself.”

Juno had a feeling she was making that up, but he didn’t know enough about computers to know how to call her out.

“I can’t believe I finally ask you to watch something and this is what happens,” he said instead.

“Give me a _narrative_ , Mr. Steel! Give me _drama_ , _action_ , a twist ending no one saw coming! I need a main character with a little more personality than a newsbox and their sidekick, streetlamp!” Rita went animated, moving her hands in little bursts and waves and punches, and Juno got a little dizzy trying to keep up.

“What about the characters they added in season two, Our Missing Person and Notorious Mobster? They only stuck around for a couple of minutes, but that ending sure packed a punch.” 

“Oooooh, I missed that part! Sounds real exciting. Tell me everything. I want all the backstory and character arcs, in detail.”

“They… they had a fistfight, Rita, that’s why I said ‘packed a punch’, it was--Just, watch it, and get whatever you can on the mob guy for me, okay? Give him the old virtual shakedown, I want to know his shoe size and favorite color by the end of it.” He put on his old coat, then stopped. “Not literally. I don’t even think you could find--”

She was already typing furiously. “Goldenrod,” she said without missing a beat.

Juno blinked. He was suspected she might be messing with him, but, again, he didn’t know enough about technology to argue.

“Okay. Great. Now do that, but with… anything relevant,” he said, and started for the door.

“Sure thing. See ya soon, Junebug,” Rita said, and she went dutifully back to work.

Juno was outside and halfway down Broad before he realized what she said.

 _Must have imagined it,_ he thought.

\---

The next time was a few nights later.

Juno was at his second-favorite bar in Hyperion City. (If anyone asked what his favorite bar was, his canned answer was _All the other ones_.) Theoretically he was cutting back on the drinking, but Peter Nureyev was several planets away right now and what he didn’t know couldn’t hurt him. It’s not like he was a regular anymore. And he hadn’t come back home beaten to hell because he’d decided to pick a fight with the maddest-looking barfly around since… since he and Peter had started whatever it was they were, now. It was hard to define it when they were apart so much. But it took a lot to keep Juno from chasing trouble and bruises and violence and pain and the adrenaline rush that came with it.

Luckily for Juno’s several-times-broken nose, Peter Nureyev was the textbook definition of _a lot_.

All this to say, Juno was ostensibly at the bar to see what he could see and overhear what he could overhear. The guy was down the bar from him, and if Juno focused hard enough he could just hear him bragging about having all the information he needed if he could just _crack the file open_ , which was the least comfortable he’d ever been with a euphemism for torturing, threatening, or otherwise extorting information out of someone.

The barkeep approached. “Been dropping in here a lot the past couple of days,” she started, probably because Juno was one of the only people in here who gave real tips. “Looking forward to a breakup or something?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Juno said, but his ears were straining for the conversation behind him. If he could just get an address, or any kind of clue for one--

“You want another round, or--”

Juno shushed her and waved her off, and she looked at him with a face of the most apathetic affront he’d ever seen. It was the kind of look he tried to perfect in a mirror whenever Nureyev suggested they go undercover together, just to see if he could pull that kind of thing off. (He couldn’t.)

“All right, _Junebug,”_ she said in a sneering voice.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, and the man behind him finally let something drop, and by the time the name reached Juno’s brain he was tailing the guy’s friend to figure out exactly what building those codes were in.

He shook his head. Maybe he needed to start getting more sleep.

\---

“Here you go, Junebug,” the guy who Juno usually bought his 2 AM convenience store sandwiches from. Juno felt like he should know the guy’s name, but he didn’t. He had a strong feeling it might be Gary.

“Yeah, thanks,” he said, exhausted, and paid and walked back to his apartment like a zombie, ate his sandwich--reliably mediocre as always--and fell asleep.

He sat up with a start in the middle of the night. “Wait, what?” he asked the blank walls of his apartment, the inside of his mouth tasting like moldy cardboard.

\---

Juno probably shouldn’t have taken a call from his… from Peter Nureyev while breaking into a building, but it had been a few months since the last time they’d seen each other. He’d been calling a lot lately, and, well. Juno wasn’t going to keep a gentleman caller waiting.

They’d gotten past the pleasantries by the time Juno found the right door. “What are you doing tonight? Tell me all about your exciting adventures on Mars,” Nureyev’s voice said.

“Picking a lock so I can find some incriminating evidence to persecute the head of a ring of experimental drug smugglers who’s got way more mob ties than expected and recover a missing person in the process. You know, just another Monday.”

Nureyev laughed, just once, a delighted, pealing thing that Juno wanted to catch in his hands and hold there. “I’m in the middle of some lock-picking myself,” he explained, and Juno suddenly heard those sounds in the background as quiet drills and light hammers.

“No kidding?” Juno asked, a little charmed despite himself. God, he was such a fool for him.

“Cross my heart,” he said, and the drilling picked up in shrillness.

“That’s…” _kind of nice_ , he wanted to say. “Some kinda coincidence,” he chose instead.

“Indeed it is,” Nureyev said, and Juno could hear him smiling, and they both worked in warm silence until Juno heard a click and the lock gave.

“Hah! Beat you,” Juno informed him.

“Actually--”

“No,” Juno groaned,

“--this is the third in a series of five.” Juno heard a distinctive _clink_ and the sound of metal falling to the floor. “Fourth,” Nureyev corrected.

Juno groaned again. “You never let me win,” he complained as he surveyed the desk drawers. “I’m looking through his desk now. Best guess?”

“Top right,” Nureyev tried. “There’s always next time, Junebug,” he continued.

“Right! Right,” Juno said suddenly. “Nureyev. Have you been… telling people about the, the thing you call me?” He really didn’t want to say it. “No dice on top right. Well, yes dice, no info.”

“Which one?” he asked, distracted, and Juno heard a door creaking open on his side. “And… bottom middle. Left, if there’s not a middle drawer.”

There was. “The one you just said. The, that one.” Juno checked the bottom middle drawer. “Empty.”

“Okay, then…”

“You got two turns! Second middle.”

“I call you a lot of names, darling detective mine,” Nureyev said, and Juno groaned again. He was going to have to _say_ it.

“Junebug,” he said, as quietly as was physically possible for sound to pass through a mouth.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that,” and Juno could hear Nureyev’s eyes laughing at him.

 _”Junebug,”_ Juno said louder, and felt his face heating up. “Second right,” he added as he opened the second middle drawer to find nothing but some ancient novelty pens and a bag of chips. “People keep calling me,” he swallowed, “ _Junebug,_ and I just want to know if you told anyone, okay?”

His voice was confused, which is how Juno knew he wasn’t lying. “I haven’t told anyone. Promise,” he added.

“Any chance it just, slipped out or something, sometime?” He checked the drawer. “Nothing in second right.”

“Bottom left. And do you think I would be here talking to you right now if I was in the habit of letting names ‘slip out’?” 

“Okay, yeah, stupid question.” Juno checked bottom left drawer. “Nothing in bottom left. Third left.” The sound of fabric being ripped came from his comms. A painting, probably. Peter loved a good art heist. “Maybe I’m just imagining it, I don’t know.”

Peter Nureyev’s voice smirked at him. “Oh, darling, you miss me so much you’re becoming utterly lovelorn. What a sad fate for such a lovely detective.”

“Maybe I am,” Juno said quietly, and the sound of footsteps on Nureyev’s end of the call stopped for a second too long, and then picked up again.

“I’ll come back soon,” he said.

“I, um,” Juno checked the drawer in lieu of responding. “Empty.”

“Second left,” Nureyev said, and his voice was so warm all of a sudden and Juno was blushing again, until he wasn’t.

“Look, Peter, I’m… I know I said I would…” He started over. “I didn’t come with you again. I, I should have. I’m trying, I know it’s just a month and I really, I thought I could do it this time, but…” 

“I know.” Juno put a hand on the back of his neck and bent downwards, trying to duck away from whatever forgiving thing Peter Nureyev was going to say next. “We can try again next time.”

It was always _we_ with him.

“Um, yeah.” Juno pulled the second left drawer open. “Typical,” he said to himself.

“Was it second left?” Nureyev asked excitedly.

“Yeah,” Juno admitted, holding a written list of passwords and codes. One of them had to be the right one.

“Excellent,” and the purr sent shivers up and down Juno’s spine. “I’ll be looking forward to the next time we settle our debts, then.”

“Yeah,” Juno said with a wry smile. He preferred when Peter won anyway. He was much more creative.

Juno heard the sound of a door opening, and voices. “Is that on your end?”

“I’m already out,” Nureyev said, and of course he was. “Must be you. Is everything all right over there?”

“Great,” Juno lied, stuffing the paper into his pocket while footsteps approached him, very quickly. He probably should have shut the door behind him. “I gotta go. See you next month.”

“Call me back as soon as you’re out of there, Junebug,” he said all in a rush, and then a man who looked like he could tear Juno in two without blinking an eye appeared in the doorway.

“Didn’t anyone teach you not to eavesdrop when a lady’s taking a call?” Juno asked, and he only barely managed to hang up before Peter Nureyev had to hear him get sucker-punched so hard that he’d be able to feel it two planets away.

\---

Juno had him pinned on the ground. What the detective lacked in size, strength, finesse, power, and pretty much everything else you needed to be good at fighting, he made up for with a healthy willingness to fight dirty and general scrappiness. “Now what’s gonna happen is,” Juno said, a little out of breath, “You’re gonna tell me where Calla Riggs is so that I can get back to that very important phone call, and before you try to hit me _very_ hard in the gut again, let me remind you that I have no regard for my own health or safety.”

“How is that going to stop me from trying to hit you?”

Juno was sort of wondering the same thing while he said it. “Nobody wants to fight an unpredictable opponent,” he improvised, and he hoped he was breathless enough that it sounded threatening.

“Whatever you say, Junebug,” the man said, spitting out blood and what looked like a tooth, and he smiled a hateful, dark red grin.

“Quit the games--wait, what? You? _You_ know?” That didn’t make any sense whatsoever, and there was only one company in Hyperion City with a vested interest in a dramatic story with no sensible arc or reasonable buildup. “Those goddamn commercial--” he muttered to himself and got back on his feet and swiveled about, trying to spot the cameramen, because over his dead body was he going to let the Kanagawas use him for profit on one of their ridiculous overwrought mindless streams again, especially when they probably waited until he was blackout drunk before they got him to sign the consent form again and he _really_ needed to stop falling for that one--

The man tackled him to the ground while his back was turned, and Juno was right back into the tussle, the Kanagawas temporarily forgotten.

\---

“Solved it,” Juno announced, sporting a black eye and a few rips in his coat. He tossed an envelope on Rita’s desk with her portion of the pay. “And what do you know, no one died this time.”

“Eeeeexcept for those five office workers who got the,” Rita made a _pew_ noise with her mouth and ran a finger across her throat.

“Is that supposed to be a gun or a--you know what, never mind. All of the,” Juno mirrored the sound and gesture, “was before we got hired, and that means it doesn’t count. Statute of limitations or something. I’m taking this one,” Juno decided.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Junebug,” Rita said, and then snorted at her own joke. Juno froze and then swiveled around all at once.

“How do you know that name? Did the Kanagawas put you up to this? Goddamnit, Rita, how much are they paying you for this? Because I swear, if they’re giving you any less than what I know Cecil Kanagawa alone gets for the opening of just one of his shows I’m gonna take that whole empire of half-assed plots and substanceless glitz down,” and Rita was laughing at him.

 _”Boss,”_ she said, and Juno couldn’t fathom why she would look so _happy_ about all this, “You left your comms on speaker.”

“My comms doesn’t have speaker, Rita,” Juno said, voice dialed up just a bit too high.

Rita paused her twinkling giggles long enough to fake an exasperated sigh. “Give me your comms, boss,” she said, holding her arm straight out and opening and closing her hand.

Juno instinctively pulled it into his chest and turned away, sheltering it. “What are you going to do?”

“Fine,” Rita said. She took out her own comms and dialed some numbers. His comms started buzzing, and he checked it without even thinking.

“I’m not going to pick up, you’re in the same room as I--hey!” Rita had snatched his comms out of his hand, answered the call, and put it down on the table. 

“Hey, Mr. Steel, it’s your secretary, Rita, just calling you to let you know that your comms does have speaker, and it’s been on since we got that nice thank-you call from Ms. Talrud--”

“The one who couldn’t pay us?” Juno asked reflexively, then realized that he could hear everything coming out of his comms even though it was several feet away. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

“I think that she gave us plenty of payment, Mr. Steel, just because it’s different doesn’t mean it’s worthless,” Rita said into the phone.

“What are we going to do with eighty boxes of origami paper?”

 _”Make origami,”_ Rita half-screeched into the comms, and Juno cringed away from the sound.

“We can’t pay the rent with paper cranes,” Juno stopped, thought about it. “Wait. It’s been on that long?”

“Yep,” Rita said, and hung up.

“For… all of my calls?”

“Yeeep,” Rita said.

“Including--”

Rita pulled out the _yep_ for five full seconds--Juno counted--before she let the final _p_ pop like a piece of bubble gum.

“Hey, Rita, could you do me a favor and… just, murder me, right now?” Juno asked. “Don’t even bother destroying everything in my safe, there’s nothing that could come out about me or, anyone, that could make any of this worse.”

“Oh, come _on_ , Mr. Steel, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, you two have been away from each other a long time--”

“Not having this conversation,” Juno said, and his ears were going red, and it took a _lot_ to make red show up on him.

“We’ve all been in long-distance relationships, I know better than anyone that we all have, um, _needs_ \--”

 _”Not having this conversation!”_ Juno repeated, and strode towards the window, dangling his legs out over the fire escape.

“Mr. Steel, you’re probably feeling some feelings that might be new to you and if you need someone to talk to about your urges,” and she wasn’t even pretending she wasn’t laughing at him now and Juno slammed the window shut on her and immediately sank to the ground. Well, here it was: definitive proof you couldn’t die of humiliation.

 _Good to know,_ he thought, and there was knocking on the glass above him. He looked up instinctively.

 _Forgot your comms,_ Rita mouthed at him, and Juno slid the window open and snatched it from her hand and slammed the window shut again in one swift motion before ducking back down.

He sat like that a while, lightly tapping his forehead with the comms, until all the light was neon and his ears and face weren’t. He tipped his head back to look up at the stars, and then he was laughing, and he dialed the second-most called number on his comms and waited for him to pick up.

“Oh, right, I forgot. Yeah, I’m fine. Listen, Nureyev,” and he didn’t know why it was so absurd all of a sudden, “we’ve gotta be more discreet when I’m at work,” he laughed out, and then it was just him and Nureyev, laughing together across astronomical units and parsecs and moments until he’d be back.


End file.
